6. Sam

SAM

July 2012 - Sam is 17, Annie is 16

"Shouldn"t we go do something?" I ask. Noah is lying on his bed, flipping through a college brochure and wondering whether or not the college he picked is actually a good pick for him. "You already got in. You don't need to be doing this."

"But I just need…" Noah starts, but I can't sit still anymore.

I jump up. "Come on, man. Let's go see if Annie is doing anything with her friends today."

Noah gives me the look that I've been getting every time I suggest we hang out with Annie and her friends. I told him that I liked her friend Emily because I couldn't tell him the truth—I'm falling in love with and will probably always love his sister. I'm fairly certain that Annie knows exactly how I feel, but I haven't told her. I've never been exactly good at hiding my feelings, and the two of us have hung out a lot over the past year.

I know she's not interested in dating anyone, ever. I'm not dumb enough to believe that I could be an exception, but I can't seem to get my feelings to go away so I've stopped trying. I am in love with someone who will never love me back. Since I just graduated and I don't know where life will take me yet, I'm trying to spend as many days with Annie as I can this summer.

"I think Annie said she, Emily, and Lainy were going to the bowling alley in Greeley today," Noah says, still looking at the pamphlet on his bed.

Perfect. I snatch the paper away from him. "Okay, let's go see. I'm tired of sitting around. I'll even drive."

It's true, I don't like sitting around. That's the exact reason I'm putting off college for another year. I'm going to travel and start a vlogging YouTube channel before I decide what I want to do for school. See if traveling sparks any ideas. Wait and see where Annie ends up going to college, in a friend's kind of way.

"Fine." Noah sighs. "But you owe me."

I slap his neck as he stands up. "Owe you for what? Saving you from being glued to a college brochure all day?"

"Annie!" Noah yells as soon as we're out of his room, ignoring my comment. She appears in the hallway wearing a long, yellow sundress that's sleeveless. I wish I could count—or kiss—the freckles on her arms and shoulders, but if I told her or Noah that, they'd probably think I was a creep. Maybe I am a creep. Friends don't think those kinds of thoughts about their friends and I can be her friend.

She's also got her nose in a worn copy of Emma, her favorite classic. "Hmm?" she asks, not even looking up at us.

"When are you going bowling?" Noah asks her.

"At one," she answers, without taking her eyes off the page.

I glance at the clock on my phone. "It's twelve-thirty now."

"Okay," she says.

An awkward silence fills the hallway. Noah jumps in when I don't say a word. "Can we come?"

I give him a thankful smile and look back at her.

She eyes both of us, but her gaze settles on me, warming me from my head to my toes. "Are you bored?"

"Extremely bored, sunshine." I love how her cheeks flush slightly at my nickname for her. It's still new, but I like using it. The feeling I get knowing I flustered her slightly is a high I'll be riding for weeks.

"Sam wants to hang out with Emily," Noah says and I see her smile dim slightly for a second, but then she's back to her usual happy self.

I wonder if I should tell her the truth. I wonder if it would change anything.

I didn't say I wanted to hang out with Emily, but if I can keep Noah's suspicion off where my desires truly lie, all the better. At least until Annie graduates. Then it won't matter, because she'll be an adult and out of her mom's house. And I'll officially be an adult too. Being the youngest in my grade has always bothered me, but that's what happens when your birthday is at the end of July. But right now, I don't care as much, because I'm still only seventeen.

She rolls her eyes. "Of course he does. You guys can come, but Sam has to drive."

"Sure thing," I say.

Ten minutes later, we're all piled in my truck. It's days like this I'm grateful I can lift up the center console to create another seat. Annie is squished into that extra seat next to me with Emily in the passenger seat. Noah, Lainy, and Lainy's younger brother are in the back seat. Annie still has her book out.

"Will you please put that away?" Emily asks her. "I thought you said you wouldn't bring a book."

"I'll leave it in the truck," Annie answers as she flips a page. I need to read Emma so I have some sort of idea about why she loves it so dang much. She reads it multiple times a year.

"I'm glad you all came," Emily says, looking at me and then back at everyone in the back seat. "It'll give me someone to talk to when Annie brings her book inside the bowling alley."

"I'm going to leave it in the truck," she exclaims, but she isn't fooling anyone.

When we get to the bowling alley, I turn off the truck and grab the book from Annie's hand.

"Hey," she says, reaching for it. Her shoulder brushes mine and I get a whiff of her strawberry shampoo. It nearly undoes me, but I manage to keep my composure.

"You said you wouldn't bring it inside," I tease.

"Go, Sam," Emily cheers as she gets out of the truck. Noah gives me a smirk over her shoulder as he watches from outside. He thinks I'm doing this for Emily.

"I'll put this in my pocket for you," I say, and Annie stills.

"Really?"

"Sure," I say. "If things get too boring, I'll give it back to you."

"Alright." Annie follows her friend and slides away from me and out of the truck.

I get out and slip the small novel into my back pocket. It's way bulkier than my phone, but it's fine. I feel like I've got a little piece of her with me, and I'm not sure I want to give it back.

Once we're settled in our lane, Noah says, "Annie, let's go order some food."

She scrunches up her face. "Didn't you just eat lunch?"

"Come on," Noah says and I give him a nod as if to say thanks, even if I don't mean it.

I watch as Annie grumbles but follows Noah to the small concession stand.

"I know you like her," Emily tells me.

My head whips around to face her. "Wh-what?" I stammer.

Emily smiles at me. "Noah told me that you have a crush on me. I just smiled and went along with it, because while I'm flattered by the rumor, it's obvious to anyone with eyeballs that you care about Annie." Then she frowns. "Except maybe the Jones siblings. Neither one of them seems to have caught on."

"Thankfully," I murmur.

"So I was right?" she asks.

I nod. "You gonna tell her?" I ask her, worried.

She shakes her head. "No, but you should."

I want to ask why, but Noah and Annie return with a tray full of nachos and pizza.

"We're going to eat nachos while we"re bowling?" Emily asks with a raised eyebrow. "Like we're putting our fingers in those bowling balls that probably haven't been sanitized ever and then you're just going to eat?"

Annie groans. "This food is garbage anyway. I could have made us something if I'd known you'd wanted to eat."

I point to her. "We should have let her make us food."

Noah just laughs. "Come on, greasy pizza and gross nachos are fun sometimes."

"I cannot believe we're related," Annie says as she watches Noah dip a chip into the nacho cheese—or whatever it is. Annie has always been a bit of a food snob. She always wants to eat the best things. But after taking a cooking class her freshman year, she started cooking at home and making up her own recipes and they taste pretty good. Which is nice, since my mom doesn't cook very well and Annie and Noah's mom works a lot so she's not usually home for dinner.

"Mmmmm," Noah says. Annie rolls her eyes.

"I'm gonna bowl." She stands and grabs the six-pound ball, the smallest one they have, and it still looks too big for her and her petite frame.

I try not to be obvious as I watch Annie bowl, but Noah is distracted by his nachos so I watch her as she bowls a seven and then doesn't hit any more pins.

When she returns, she sits in the empty chair next to me. My heart flips like it always does when she's close to me. "Can I have my book now?"

Emily throws her hands up in the air. Lainy laughs—her and her brother are quiet additions to the group. Both of them seem to like observing more than talking.

"What?" Annie asks her. "Everyone has to have a turn before it's my turn again, why can't I read?"

"Because we're hanging out," Emily responds as she stands and grabs a bowling ball. "We should talk and have fun and live a little in the real world."

"Not giving you your book, not yet," I tell Annie, and she rolls her eyes like she's mad at me, but I see her smirking.

"Yeah," Noah says. "You ladies should tell us which guys you want to date next year and we can tell you if they're any good or not."

My stomach sinks. Noah has always been a bit of a romantic, he loves the idea of love. He and Emily really should go out, because she seems to be the same as him.

"Yeah right," Annie says and I notice her whole face is pink. "Like I would tell you who I like."

Emily comes back from bowling a strike.

"So there is someone," Noah says. "Do we know him?"

Annie brings her fingers to her lips and locks it like she has a key. "Nope. Not gonna happen."

Lainy looks between Annie and I before getting up to bowl. My stomach swirls. Does Annie like someone? Does she like me? Could it mean she's going to change her rules about dating and romance? These questions rattle my brain for the rest of our game.

After we finish bowling, we head over to the mini arcade and play a few games. Noah loses every single one that he plays and Annie only wins two tickets. I end up with a motherload.

"Come on," I say to Annie. Emily is on the phone with her mom. "Let's go pick out a prize."

She holds up her two tickets. "I'm pretty sure this won't get me anything."

I hold up my stack. "My treat then." She tucks a loose piece of hair behind her ear and I expect her to refuse because I know she knows thanks to Noah that ‘I like Emily' but she follows me.

"Pick anything you want," I say as we look at the display case. I watch as her eye catches on a fake gold ring with a sun etched into it. She turns away from the case.

"Surprise me," she says before reaching her hand to my back pocket and swiping her book. "I'll be over there."

I watch, frozen, as Annie returns to our table and opens up her book.

"I'll take that ring, please," I say to the kid behind the counter. He doesn't reply before handing it over.

I walk slowly over to Annie, playing with the ring in my fingers. I assume it's probably against some rule for a guy to give a girl who is supposed to only be a friend a ring, but I don't care.

I hold it up in front of her nose. "Here, sunshine."

She grins up at me as she takes the flimsy ring from my hand, our fingers brushing in the process. "Thanks, Sam," she says quietly, as she slips it onto her thumb, the only finger the ring fits.

I want to say something clever, but Emily comes over. "My mom is throwing a fit about how I need to come home and clean my room, so can we head back now?"

"Sure," Annie says. I'm sure she's not in the slightest disappointed that she gets to go home and get back to reading. "Noah, let"s go."

We're all fairly quiet on the way back. I drop Emily off first, then Lainy and her brother, before pulling my truck into my driveway.

"See you later?" Noah asks as he hops out.

"Sure, man," I say.

"See you," Annie says quietly. "And thanks for the ring."

She slides out of the truck without another word.

I don't notice until she's already at her house that she left her book on the seat.

I stuff it back in my pocket, and promise myself I'll give it back to her before I take off on my first camping adventure and that I'll just read it to see why she loves it so much.

In the end, though, I didn't ever give her the book back. I keep it, reading the parts she's got marked over and over and trying to understand her more.

I don't say anything about it and neither does she.

Just like neither of us talks about how she wears the ring for the rest of the summer. The fake gold glints on her thumb every time I see her.

I try to tell myself that it means nothing, but I think it means something. But we never get a chance to talk about it before I head out of the state and she starts her junior year.